Board reviews five-year LRSP plan; district launches WiseTail-funded youth-resilience project and new student supports

The Bozeman School District Board of Trustees approved the district's five-year plan tied to the long-range strategic plan (LRSP) and heard multiple staffing and program announcements aimed at student well-being and literacy. On a motion by Trustee Berthelsen, seconded by Trustee Lucene, the board approved action item 4.1.0.3 by a 7–0 vote.

Casey led the presentation of the LRSP-linked five-year plan and highlighted student-well-being gains in recent Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS) data: Casey summarized that high-school self-reported depression indicators fell to 23.88% and middle-school rates fell to 20%, noting the district goal remains below 15 percent. "We saw a 31 percent decrease at the middle school and a 34 percent decrease at the high school," Casey said, framing the change as movement toward pre-pandemic levels.

Casey announced a substantial community nonprofit grant from WiseTail, a learning-management-software company, to host a three-year Youth Resilience Project at no cost to the district. The program will include short training modules and community mental-health modules on signs of suicide and how to have vulnerable conversations, with district staff (including Johanna) and external partners preparing rollout in early fall.

The board heard that the Bozeman School Foundation funded a one-year youth-prevention specialist position; Casey named Taylor Gooch, a school counselor from CJ Middle School, as the hire. Gooch will be based near other student-support staff and will lead peer-to-peer prevention at middle and high schools and support the science-of-suicide program.

Other plan elements approved or described include adding nearly 1.0 FTE of MLEL staff at each high school to expand multilingual-English-learner supports, creating two additional counseling student-support FTE (one at each high school) this year with two more planned next year, and expanding early-literacy classrooms at Irving and Morningstar to serve up to 126 students. The district also plans an update to the Danielson-based teacher-evaluation framework and software, with BEA partnership for standardization and better dashboards.

Trustees asked about survey timing and growth metrics; Casey confirmed the YRBS is administered every other year with data arriving in spring, and staff-level evaluation cadence (twice yearly for non-tenured teachers, three-year cycle for tenured) was reiterated. Mars (district HR/business) reported that 83 certified positions were posted and 77 filled, with five remaining openings including a 1.0 deaf-and-hard-of-hearing position and a 1.5 math-intervention teacher at the middle school.

Trustees expressed broad support for the student-well-being and literacy investments. The board had no amendments and approved the five-year plan item 4.1.0.3.